This
project is focused on the development of a battery of cognitive tests
for human infants and toddlers that are adaptations of tasks originally
developed for animal studies. Since extensive primate work has been
done using these tests (in normal and lesioned animals), the links
between performance on these tasks and the underlying neurosubstrates
are reasonably well established. The cognitive battery of tests thus
may eventually be used to draw comparisons between monkey populations
(such as the monkeys in the Timing of Maternal
Separation Study)
and human populations (such as the children in our Bucharest
Early Intervention Project).